


The Strongest Tie of All

by spycandy



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - John Le Carré
Genre: Flu, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-21
Updated: 2011-10-21
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:35:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spycandy/pseuds/spycandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spies are good at keeping secrets... most of the time. (Something of a mish-mash between book-verse and film-verse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Strongest Tie of All

“Father and son, that kind of relationship? Brawn to brain? More exact perhaps would be a son to his adopted father, which in the trade is to be held the strongest tie of all.”  
\-- The Honourable Schoolboy

 

He felt uncomfortably hot even carrying the file under his arm as he walked across the open work space where Redesford and Budge were poring over large OS maps and into his office. The slim dossier contained the very last dregs of information from a network – his network – about to be snuffed out. Every fact, every detail, within would inevitably recall the people had had recruited, nurtured and, ultimately, failed to save.

Get a grip Peter, he told himself. You've read it all before and it won't have got any _worse_.

He'd been thoroughly debriefed on it all in fact. And before that he'd actually lived through it. So he shouldn't really need recourse to the paperwork at all. Except this _had_ to be right. Yet more lives depended on it. And after over an hour of trying and trying to remember, until his head throbbed with the effort, he had given in and gone in search of the written record.

Deep breath.

After opening the blue cardboard folder he had to rest his hand on the desk to stop it from shaking. At least the photographs weren't at the very front. An index page prevented him from being ambushed by familiar faces, but even the names in neat black type seemed to make his pulse race. The words swam out of focus.

He pressed his hands against his eyes, willing himself to concentrate. But how could he with all that din? The roar of motorbikes outside the window, the clatter of donkeys' hooves, the tinkling fountain in the courtyard, the call to evening prayer. The dreadful eardrum-splitting silence of a network destroyed.

Damn. He needed some fresh air. Or at least air choked with London pollution rather than warm spices. But just staggering to the door of his office was an effort and the door seemed so heavy that it must be lead-lined. It wasn't usually, was it?

Redesford glanced up from the maps and said something Peter couldn't make out, before rushing towards him, just as the room listed wildly, like a ship in a storm.

He reached out to grab onto the nearest desk for balance, but his hand met only a teetering in-tray and as he crashed to the ground he was momentarily aware of papers fluttering around him, before everything went dark.

>>

“Peter...”

Studying Guillam as he dozed on the shabby too-short couch, looking paler and younger and much more vulnerable than usual, George Smiley felt once again that twinge of paternal concern he had first noticed some weeks earlier, during their hunt for the mole.

“Dad?” Guillam's unexpected schoolboy whine so closely answered his thoughts that it surprised a small cough of amusement from Smiley.

That sound prompted the younger man to blink more fully awake, followed by further dazed blinking, as if he was trying to get his surroundings to settle into somewhere recognisable. The room should be familiar, Smiley supposed. It was the same store room-come-sick bay from which Guillam had lifted key documents early on in their investigation.

After calling upstairs in alarm, Redesford and Budge had carried him in here. Then, after removing his shoes and tie, they had hovered mother hen-nishly until Smiley had arrived and sent them in off search of tea, tablets and Fawn.

Guillam attempted to sit up properly, then slumped back against the cushions with a pained groan.

“So. Would you care to explain why you were torturing yourself with the Morocco files while running a temperature of 102 degrees?” asked Smiley.

“The Giant Chicken of Fes.”

This evidence of delirium alarmed Smiley. He was about to call the just-departed nurse and her thermometer back into the room, when Peter continued, “It was a mistranslation of the codename for one of our sources in the city, but it amused the radio operator, so it stuck.”

He broke off for a moment, overcome with a coughing fit. Smiley waited, still standing beside the sofa.

“He's resurfaced in Algiers with a somewhat iffy story of living among the Bedouin ever since... well, since I last heard from him. And I wanted to check... er, I couldn't remember exactly... just how implicated he'd been when, well, you know...”

“And this lapse of memory didn't make you think for a moment that maybe your brain wasn't running at optimum temperature for the task?”

“It still has to be done,” said Peter, looking miserable and sounding hoarser by the word. “There's a scalphunter operation on in Algeria. It would help the field agents there a great deal if he could be trusted.”

“All right. I'll pass it along to Research,” said Smiley. A stubborn head shake at the confiscation of the unhappy task did nothing to change his mind. “Sorry Peter, I think this would be better handled by someone not compromised by both personal involvement and influenza.”

A soft knock at the door preceded Fawn's entry with a brown tea tray, bearing one glass of weak orange squash, two cups of tea and a small bottle of pills.

“How's our patient?” he asked, as he balanced the tray on the seat of a desk chair that had been relegated into this room thanks to a broken back rest.

“Annoyed,” summarised Smiley, even as Peter started to complain that he would be fine to get on with his work, he really would, given ten minutes and a cup of tea.

“And you think those field agents in North Africa would want to rely on information from a man who isn't entirely certain which continent he's on?” asked Smiley, at which low blow Peter looked thoroughly chastised. “Your people said you were rambling in French after you collapsed. Now, can you sit up and drink something?”

With a bit of manhandling from Fawn, Peter managed to get himself upright, swayed a little, then found the strength to straighten his backbone, making him look more his usual self. Smiley sat down beside him, unscrewed the bottle top and handed over two pills to be swallowed with the squash. Then he picked up the second cup of tea and gave Fawn a slight nod of dismissal.

“Is there anyone at home to keep an eye on you if I send you in a car?” asked Smiley, after Fawn had closed the door.

There wasn't one single obvious thing that gave Peter Guillam away; no wince or glaring shift in body language. But if this had been an interrogation, Smiley thought, he would have known straight away that there was something here to pursue.

“No. Nobody,” said Peter, with just a hint of feeling sorry for himself that could easily be put down to nothing more than feeling unwell and being reminded of his apparently luckless love life.

This _wasn't_ an interrogation, Smiley reminded himself, and it certainly wasn't his business to pry into loneliness, especially when a man's defences were down and his mind was only half-tethered to the here and now.

He sipped his tea and remained quiet. Peter put the squash glass back on the tray and rubbed his forehead with both hands as if trying to press a thought away. When he looked back at Smiley his eyes were glistening – with tears? Fever?

“Not anyone,” he said “Not since Andrew.”

There were rules for situations like this. Rules that ministers fussed about and newspapers fulminated over. Rules that would strip Guillam of his access to state secrets and thus cost Smiley the diligent and competent help he badly needed to put the Circus back together. Antiquated rules that must surely be obsolete within a decade.

“I had to finish it. When you said...” Peter was interrupted once again by coughing. As it subsided, Smiley pressed a palm to his forehead – very hot – and shushed him to forestall any further fevered rambling confessions.

Oh, sod the bloody rules.

Smiley had kept many men's secrets. He had probably forgotten some altogether, against which Guillam's, although potentially career-ending, barely ranked at all.

He wanted to say something that would convey his sympathy and understanding to the man shivering beside him, head bowed and eyes downcast. He wanted to say that he was sorry for what Peter had sacrificed to duty and grateful for his loyalty. He wanted to tell him that some of the Circus's best and bravest men had taken this same secret to the grave.

In the end, what he said was, “Yes, I see.”

>>

Peter awoke on a much more comfortable sofa in a large room tastefully decorated in what appeared by the yellow lamplight to be pale green. On a shelf in a far corner of the room, Radio 4 kept up a low murmur of pontification on the state of modern theatre, while someone clinked utensils and glassware in a nearby kitchen.

At first, he had difficulty remembering how he could have got there, but after some effort, he dredged up the memory of being half-carried to a car, slung between Fawn and Budge. And before that, of warmth and tea and talking to George Smiley about... Oh!

Had Smiley always known? Did he actually know now? Reviewing what he could recall of the afternoon's conversation, nothing irrefutable appeared to have been said. And yet Peter was certain that the facts had been understood.

So was Smiley now simply waiting until he was well again to revoke his positive vetting? Would he hold the information over Peter to ensure his loyalty and compliance?

This unworthy thought was still gnawing at him when George Smiley entered the room carrying two glasses of Stuart crystal, one of them steaming.

“Ah Peter,” he said. “I thought this might help you get a decent night's sleep.”

'This', upon a sniff and a sip, was revealed to be a hot whiskey toddy, warming and only lightly sweetened. A second gulp made the room glow comfortably, chasing worries into the shadows.

“You shouldn't be alone,” said Smiley as he seated himself in the nearby armchair.

“No, you're probably right. I'd have fallen asleep and drowned myself in the bath or something stupid if you'd sent me home. Sorry to be such a bother.”

“That's not... Hum, true enough. But that wasn't what I meant. You shouldn't be alone in life Peter. You shouldn't have to be.”

It wasn't a solution and this was hardly the time for devising one. It certainly wasn't permission. But there in the cosy lamplight, Peter couldn't help feeling that awkward declaration alone was worth every sacrifice the service demanded.

At Sarratt, they would no doubt insist that a secret shared was a secret risked. However, meeting George Smiley's eyes – warm with affection and, as ever, a little worried – he felt safer than he ever had.

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Smiley's estimate of a decade is optimistic. It was 1991 before John Major removed the rule by which “acknowledged homosexual acts” were a bar to positive and enhanced positive vetting for work in the diplomatic and security services.


End file.
